Sandman1330

Good points, and generally about how I feel. I too love this airplane, and this module. I’m just perhaps a bit disappointed in the performance of the aircraft, maybe I unrealistically expected too much. As for bugging out, I’ve tried it against hornets when I just couldn’t get the advantage - while I was able to outrun the aircraft, I couldn’t outrun his AIM9X :lol: (though once or twice I was actually able to do that - this plane is fast!) Even going vertical, the Hornet manages to keep up, which surprised me as well. I should clarify - in the setups we’ve tried, it’s been 2 AIM9 each, full fuel for the Tomcat and just over half for the hornet, which seems to give about the same endurance at burner.

Haha, I remember that thread. It quickly devolved into arguments and performance charts. It was also before we had the module in hand. I’m looking to discuss people’s thoughts, now that we have the module in hand and some time in it.

OK folks, I'm curious. First of all, this is a fantastic module, wonderfully built and I have no doubt a fantastic representation of the real thing. But I'm going to put it out there and be honest: I don't think the Tomcat is a very good WVR/BFM fighter against the DCS contemporaries (Mig-29, F-15C, F/A-18C). I've put in quite a bit of time doing 1v1 type fights in the Tomcat since it's been released. I've got basic handling down quite well - I still rip my wings off every now and then when I get overzealous, but otherwise I keep her under control, make her turn the way I want to at high alpha, and just generally handle fairly well. However, against other similarly skilled human players in primarily Hornets, I still can't keep up. The Hornet and Mig29 have a much tighter turn radius and nose authority, so 1-circle fights are over before the first 180*. I thought she'd fair much better in the 2 circle, but it seems that even the Hornet can out rate her in sustained turns. It takes several revolutions, but each turn the Hornet gains a few more degrees. We have a really small server community, so we know each other really well. In the Hornet, so far I've managed to win the vast majority of our 1v1, and even 2v1 fights. But these same guys eat me for breakfast when I jump in a Tomcat (they stay in a Hornet). Same skill levels, different airframes. So what I'm curious to know is, what are other's experiences? Is there anyone out there who's consistently managed to best the Hornet / Mig29 flown by closely matched human players? I think the Tomcat would fare much better against human flown Mig23/25 (more it's contemporaries, unless we step up to the F14D) if we had them. Discuss! (hopefully we can keep it civil!)

That does seem a bit excessive, but I’m so used to mirrors dropping FPS that I don’t think much about it. I go from 45 to 20-30 in PG when I turns mirrors on in the Tomcat.

Mirrors are a huge FPS drop. They look cool but I leave them off mostly. This isn’t limited to the Tomcat but it seems especially bad, perhaps because the Tomcats mirrors are simulated so well!

F-14B vs F-14B, this is all good stuff. Hornet vs Hornet, I typically devour the other guys in my server (there are only 4 of us and we know each other’s skill levels quite well). Putting them in the Hornet and me in the F14, I can’t touch them. I can beat pretty much any AI aircraft, but against even half decent human players in the Hornet, the Tomcat really seems to be at a disadvantage WVR. I expected the Tomcat to own the 2 circle rate fight against a Hornet, but surprisingly not - holding 350kts in a 2 circle, the hornet slowly gained angles. After a few turns, I try to bug out and use the tomcats speed, but it’s not quite fast enough to outrun the 9X :pilotfly: More practice and time may help, but we are fairly mismatched in skill and I still get my butt kicked :)

Hadn’t heard about that one. The 2017 SU24 shootdown in Syria was advertised as the first use in combat (where the missile failed). First US use in combat I guess, or perhaps Wikipedia is wrong too, unless there are corroborating sources. So that makes it 50% success in combat! I’m not arguing that the 9X is a bad missile, just that combat is not the same as testing conditions. The 9X is a beast in DCS, so is the Phoenix. Both have cases in real life where the missile failed. Doesn’t make either one over cooked in DCS.

Might be a rollback to fix the F14 Jester CTDs.

Perhaps they’ve rolled back a version or parts of this version to temporarily address the F14 Jester CTD?

Yup. The week before the change to ED miles they are giving us 30% off for bonus points. It’s still not much but they are doing something, they also don’t expire until 1 year after earning or Apr 1 next year. It’s in this week’s weekend news.

Well the hornet is a vastly superior WVR fighter, with the AIM9X and FBW, which both could probably be argued to be “over cooked” as well. The only attempted use of the 9X in combat, it also failed. Each fighter has its strengths and weaknesses.

OK, could be. Also could be an element of rolling G going on, I had a slow roll going but not very fast. I didn't have time to check the G meter for max G before hitting the water :)

I'm wondering myself if there's something going on here. I ripped by wings off today in a dogfight, and according to Tacview, it was at 9.3g. It was a progressive pull out of dive, with slowly building G. I'd earlier in that dogfight hit 10g momentarily, but that was the max I can see that I hit, so I'm not sure if it was a cumulative fatigue thing, but to rip wings off at 9.3g, with a max sortie G of 10, seems a bit excessive? In another thread, it's mentioned the aircraft was tested to 13g before structural failure (other things break first though!) Edit: Tacview file is attached, I spawn into the "incident" aircraft at 13:17, dogfight several different types of aircraft as they spawn, and the wings rip off at 23:53. Peak G I saw was 10.8 for a split second (I admit this is a bit high, but within airframe (if not avionics) limits), then the wings rip off with 9.3G a minute or so later. Tacview File: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ascm8Kmu7NR0getzfFI1zlkrJzIzVg

For a given RPM, turbine engines can vary a fair bit in their power output, depending on their wear, age, etc, I think this is modeled in the hornet, not sure about the tomcat.

Good point - will try that. Though I may roll back anyway until the hotfix, since I’ve become a victim of the CTD issue.

Haha, if I need more than 32gb or ram and an SSD faster than the NVMe 960 Evo, shoot me ;) For me, it’s mostly on initial loading, but I do consistently get less smoothness and lower frames than the hornet. It might be related to PG map as well?

Seems like VR only, but I don’t play in 2D.

I have more stuttering and constant no-dump CTDs also. I mostly use the PG map. Specs in sig.

F14? It seems to be bugged this update, especially in multiplayer. Lots of talk about it over in the heatblur forums.

Nice write-up! Two possible scenarios for you that aren’t related to the declination: 1. I don’t have the Mi8, but I fly another type of helicopter in real life that is equipped with Doppler. It is not a very accurate system and is very prone to drift. When we are flying on Doppler, we update it’s position using a known point in flight every 10-15 minutes. This would account for the Doppler being worse, as you’ve said. 2. Does your mission have any winds? If it has wind and you are not accounting for that, then that will cause drift on its own. Even a very light wind will have a significant effect over a distance. As for DCS handling of variation, I’m not entirely sure how it handles it, but perhaps your issue is more related to one of the two points above?

Haha, exactly what I was going to say! I spend all day at work doing checks and maintenance flights, on my downtime I don’t want to feel like I’m at work.

You might get away with a PD lower than 1 in DCS. Never tried it, but I think it goes lower than 1.

I have an X56 for primary control. I use the touch controllers to manipulate switches, I find it easier than the mouse, at least until they decouple the mouse pointer from head movement! In Wag’s recent interview, he did say they are close to enabling the use of touch controllers to manipulate stick and throttle too, so what you speak of may soon be possible.

Be lower than him to increase ground clutter and notch. The F14 is very suceptible to notching in pulse Doppler mode. If you notch, you force the RIO to go into pulse mode. Pulse mode is immune to notching but cannot look down, as it has no ground clutter filter (that’s the Doppler part). So if you are forcing him to look down while notching, you are exploiting both weaknesses.

Has there been any recent news on if DCS will support WMR controllers, as it does for Touch? I think many of us may be jumping ship from Rift to the new HP headset, given this week’s news. I’ve just gotten into using touch in cockpit, and I like it a lot, so I’d like to keep that up when I switch to WMR if I can.